USING INTUITIVE INTELLIGENCE DURING RESEARCH: FIVE PRACTICAL TOOLS.

Sorry about the lines of asterisks in the following. The software here finds it difficult to register concepts like paragraphs, so this is my convoluted attempt to organise my ideas! The asterisks denote a new paragraph. Researchers with an intuitive bent should find the following five tools useful. I have used them all in my own research, including the writing of my doctoral thesis. If you want to read the journal article this is extracted from, visit the link to follow. It is taken from a special edition of the Open Information Science Journal, which has a new volume on spiritual information. I think many readers here will find the papers useful. Mine is the last paper, at the very bottom. Feel free to email me if you would like more information or clarification (mindfutures@yahoo.com). The journal’s page is: http://www.bentham.org/open/toiscij/openaccess2.htmJust to clarify, “integrated intelligence” is a term I use to describe spiritual intuition. “Integrated inquiry” is the process of using spiritual intuition during research.******************************************************************************As I began my own research, and in particular my doctoral program, I set about systematically incorporating integrated inquiry into my research, informally. In doing so, I learned key distinctions, developed key tools, and clarified functional processes. Most importantly, I felt it enhanced my research and writing greatly. In this section I will explain this in greater detail.******************************************************************************Integrated Intelligence as a Provocation: One way to consider initiating integrated intelligence into research is to think of it as a deliberate provocation. “Provocation” refers to the employment of an idea or suggestion which lies outside our normal experience or understanding.******************************************************************************There is a mathematical necessity for provocation in any self-organising system; otherwise the system gets stuck in equilibrium. For the researcher, “the system” is the critical/ rational worldview and its self-limiting knowledge boundaries and ways of knowing.******************************************************************************Thus the provocation becomes: “Minds extend beyond the brain and are part of an intelligent cosmos, and humans have the capacity to consciously draw information and guidance from that system.” We do not necessarily have to insist that integrated intelligence is “real,” but as a means of lateralizing our thinking, seeing what creative outcomes can be achieved, and how it can make our research better.******************************************************************************In the world of conventional science and academia, research is conducted with the implicit assumption that knowledge is localised in a random universe without intrinsic intelligence, meaning, or purpose. When we use integrated intelligence, either as a “believer” in INI, or as a provocation, we go about research assuming that consciousness is nonlocalised in an integrated, intelligent, and deeply meaningful cosmos.******************************************************************************Therefore, it is in the accessing and processing of information that the idea of integrated intelligence provides unique opportunities for researchers. Integrated intelligence is an invitation to employ methods, tools, and behaviors that stretch far beyond those accepted in conventional research.******************************************************************************There are specific integrated intelligence tools: The five INI tools are The Intuitive Diary, Free-form Writing, Meditative States, The Feeling Sense, and Embracing Synchronicity. In this section I am going to describe them, then outline some specific applications using the core operations of INI.******************************************************************************The Intuitive Diary:This is a diary in which the researcher records his/her intuitive feelings, images, prompts, dreams, and so on. He/she can also record his/her interpretations of these sources of information. I suggest the researcher buy a good quality diary, as he/she may later want to be able to look back on what has been written (sometimes it makes more sense then). The Intuitive Diary helps to establish the connection between rational and intuitive cognitive processes in the brain. Writing down intuitions and intuitive experiences not only helps the researcher understand them better; it sends a message to the psyche that these “data” count.******************************************************************************Free-form Writing:Free-form Writing is stream-of-consciousness prose, written fluidly, quickly, and without immediate editing ortoo much conscious analytical thinking. It is essentially “effortless” writing. I have used Free-form Writing extensively in all my writing, including my doctoral thesis. I adopted this idea from Joan Bolker’s Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day. Bolker’s book is about writing a thesis through four stages: the zero draft, first draft, second draft, and beyond. Bolker recommends writing from day one of the doctoral enrollment. She suggests writing at least fifteen minutes a day, no matter what.******************************************************************************The “zero draft” involves writing whatever comes to you, and without editing, proofreading, or censoring yourself. The writer simply transcribes whatever idea comes into his/her mind about the subject matter—connections, distinctions, hypotheses, questions, guesses, confusions, etc. After the zero draft phase, the researcher can begin to put together a first draft. I adapted Bolker’s method to my understandings of integrated intelligence. When I began typing, I simply allowed myself to enter a fluid stream of consciousness, and let the words pour out. However, instead of writing for fifteen minutes, I set myself a goal of writing five hundred words a day, every day, first thing in the morning. I found that the zero draft helped clarify thinking, as did Free-form Writing. As I wrote, ideas came together. Links between people, ideas, and historical and philosophical concepts suddenly began to make sense. I did not stop to check if the ideas were valid. I just kept writing. This is thinking as you write, not thinking before you write.******************************************************************************Before I began my daily writing session I began with a prayer or affirmation. It would often go something like this. Spirit, lead me through this writing process, so that what that I am writing may be fluent and truthful. For those with no spiritual belief structures, I suggest a suspension of disbelief here. The writer might like to remind himself/herself that the process is a provocation! He/she can use an affirmation or prayer that he/she feels comfortable with, one that reflects his/her particular worldview and belief system. I also highly recommend writing down key questions, to help shape the whole process. The researcher can say or read them aloud, if he/she likes.******************************************************************************In the early phases of the thesis writing, I wrote about things that I was drawn to, or which moved me. This is what I call using The Feeling Sense (another INI tool, as I shall explain below). Sometimes I woke up and an idea would come into my head, and I would go with it. I never suffered from writer’s block.******************************************************************************My policy of writing consistently paid off. I completed my thesis in less than four years while working full-time. By the time I was granted my Ph.D. I had a total of eighteen publication credits (either published or about to be published), including several book chapters, and had completed the writing for my book, Integrated Intelligence.******************************************************************************Meditative States: Meditative States can help cultivate non-ordinary states of consciousness, facilitating access the intuitive mind. The process I suggest is to quiet the mind, put out questions, and wait for the answers to come in any sensory modality—images, auditory prompts, subtle feelings, etc. Meditative States are an intimate part of the development of integrated intelligence and integrated inquiry. Researchers can familiarise themselves with this INI tool through deliberate meditation, or by taking advantage of the drowsy state between sleeping and waking—the hypnogogic state. This state occurs naturally when falling asleep and waking up.******************************************************************************To bring about the sleepy state, the individual can sit quietly in a chair (or sit or lie wherever he/she feels comfortable) and relax. He /she should focus on his/her breath, and breathe deeply in and out. As thoughts move into his/her mind, he/she should just allow them to pass. He/she can imagine them being placed inside balloons and floating away. When just shy of sleep, he/she can put questions out to Spirit/the subconscious mind (as he/she prefers). Then he/she can observe what emerges in the form of feelings, images, sounds, and words.******************************************************************************Meditative States should be used in short bursts lasting no more than a few minutes. When the meditation is complete, the researcher should record what he/she has experienced in his/her Intuitive Diary. Later, these can be analysed.******************************************************************************Developing The Feeling Sense:Just as with using intuition in general life, you can also allow your feelings to guide you as you research. The more you become comfortable with inner worlds, the easier it will become to distinguish amongst the many subtle feelings from within. You have to learn the difference between a “true” intuitive pull and other competing voices from within—the ego, desire, wishful thinking, fear of the unknown, and so on. This is not really something that can be taught. It is something you learn by trial and error.******************************************************************************I suggest using The Feeling Sense to help choose the subject of investigation, what is read, and when it is read. During the time of writing this paper, I was walking past a small bookshop not far from my workplace in Hong Kong. This shop has no more than a few dozen English titles (almost all books are in Chinese), so I rarely go in there. However, on this occasion I felt a subtle sense of excitement as I walked past (something I have trained myself to notice). I walked in and immediately found Edward de Bono’s, Think! Before It’s Too Late. I picked it up, and again felt that same sense of excitement. I knew the book was right for me. I bought it. de Bono’s book helped me clarify some crucial distinctions for the writing of this paper. In the instance above, I combined The Feeling Sense with another INI tool - Embracing Synchronicity (explained below). In traditional research, conducted within the critical/rational worldview, this entire scenario would be considered absurd, deluded, or perhaps even insane. Personally, I choose not to trouble myself too much with such judgments. The skeptical reader might like to think of this as part of the provocation. The key point to using The Feeling Sense during research is to go with what excites the researcher. Here, I invite the contemplation of another provocation. The researcher should not read or investigate anything that does not excite him/her within any given moment. When we force ourselves to study something that we are not truly interested in, we may lose the flow of the research, and we may become stuck. I suggest that unless the researcher has been assigned the reading by a teacher, or it is an absolute “must read,” that he/she put it aside. He/she may well find that at a later point it does feel right to read. This is about doing the right thing at the right time. It reminds us of the Chinese idea of the Tao, or aligning with “the will of Heaven”. Water does not try to flow uphill. There are many specific ways the researcher can apply this idea. When looking through the bibliography of a text, he/she should allow any subtle feelings about the listed books and articles to “grab” him/her. If he/she sees a reference within the text of a book or article, and it evokes a strong feeling of excitement, he/she should take note and get hold of it.******************************************************************************A good way to begin is to prepare a selection of, say, five books or papers the researcher might like to read for his/her research project. Then, the researcher can sit with the books/papers in front of him/her, breathe deeply, and relax. Next, the researcher should verbally state the research questions that he/she is trying to answer. He/she should then allow himself/herself to get a feeling about each book/paper. He/she might even like to pick up the books/papers and sense how they feel to read. If it feels exciting, he/she can return to them later. The researcher can do the same when choosing which chapters, sections, paragraphs, and sentences to read within texts. He/she can work through a book much more quickly by reading only that which draws him/her in.******************************************************************************It can be seen that this process is quite different from standard research. In normal research, the researcher analyses and judges with the “rational” brain, and selects and ignores data accordingly. With integrated inquiry, the conscious mind is led by something ineffable and subtle, something that it cannot quite see or know, but which nonetheless can be felt and sensed. One is led to dip into, or skim past, information by an integrated intelligence. This is something that will initially be uncomfortable for a conventional researcher. Yet provocation is meant to cause discomfort.******************************************************************************In summary, the more researchers honour intuitive feelings, the stronger the intuitive voice becomes. Employing intuitive feelings can cut a lot of hassle out of the research process, save much time and energy, and lead to an invigorating experience in research and writing.******************************************************************************Embracing Synchronicity: Synchronicities are meaningful coincidences. Carl Jung is perhaps the best known theorist of synchronicity. For Jung, the cosmos was not the great machine of the modernists. His principle of synchronicity transcends the mechanistic paradigm. Synchronicity is fully compatible with the mystical/spiritual worldview, where matter and consciousness are in interplay in an “intelligent” cosmos.******************************************************************************Personally, I have found that a serendipitous and adventurous approach to research facilitates synchronicities. The synchronicity I described above, where I discovered de Bono’s book on thinking, was exciting. It was fun. Getting too serious and trying too hard are counter-productive to synchronicity.******************************************************************************A key point with synchronicity, and with allowing The Feeling Sense to come into play, is to bring the mind fully into the present moment. This is somewhat akin to the state of “flow,” usually reported in mainstream psychology. When the mind is too cluttered, the intuitive feelings from within cannot be heard. Being present and having fun with things may pose a challenge to researchers, many of whom are used to being “in the head” and working in institutions that tend to be extremely competitive and serious. A change of attitude is required.******************************************************************************The experience of synchronicity is, in its most exalted form, almost a kind of spiritual rapture. It is a direct affront to the critical/rational worldview. If the researcher can suspend disbelief, synchronicity facilitates serendipities which can be an invaluable aid to research.

Integrated intelligence is a way of saying the mind interacts with the smallest excitations, which exist in a microcosmic world that is not yet real. An idea, having no form itself, but gives form and figure to shapeless matter, you, the creator of your reality, it is really quite simple when you think on it. So why would you want to become someone else's reality? You've been living in an asphalt jungle. Have you lost your basic sense of survival?

I've no formal training. My training has been 87 years in the school of hard knocks. My book is the product of eleven years of writing my thoughts first thing in the morning. The events of m y life appear to be more than coincidental. They form a pattern--my individual patter--unusual if I do say so. Intuitive?

I've never heard of my approach to the truth. In any event, now in the twilight of life and my dreams having come true, I'm wandering why. Everyone appears to think my ideas are like an asteroid wandering through time and space, finally to crash into something really big and become part of it.

The intuitive diary is a good idea. I have a dream diary but it's next to bed only for dreams. I am looking for some way to develop my writing. Maybe I'll try it. On noticing coincidences, the other day a man approached me at the checkout of a hardware store, he said ' are you (my name) ?Surprised I said 'yes, how did you know that?' Then he showed me my wallet which I had dropped in an isle. He had waited there for me.

The same day , much later , I went out for a coffee. I sat down and saw a man buying a coffee and as he pulled the wallet from his back pocket a 10 dollar note flew out onto the floor. I thought wow, then I got up and walked over, tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the note.

This has never happened before. I certainly noticed it but how is it related to something else?

Wow, I'd forgotten I ever put this post here! As an update, I have written an eBook on this very subject for researchers wishing to use intuitive intelligence during their research. It's called "How to Channel a PhD". Marcus

I can tell you that with the feeling sense, when one begins understanding and paying attention to the messages, you could use psychology tools to measure flow and ease and positive emotion then teach emotional guidance and re-test. The same person doing research on different topics of similar difficulty might give you enough good data.

You could not do it in reverse because once someone begins using their emotional guidance system consciously and deliberately they won't stop using it.

It would also be critical that the emotional guidance system was taught with great clarity. There are nuances that can lead someone down the wrong path if they don't fully understand the messages. There are also techniques that are extremely beneficial--such as creating emotional touchstones when one finds themselves with a positive experience--they can heighten awareness so one recognizes the guidance at the time instead of in hindsight.

Meditation brings clarity by itself but combined with emotional guidance it brings even greater clarity.

Perhaps the "re"searcher" could be persuaded to forsake the "re"petitive aspect of the "searching", and rather focus on simply searching for and accepting what is known to all, and not what is yet unknown to many. As a species we have yet to actually create anything new, merely we have re-organized various aspects of what little we know to have been created, or at least presented to us. Thus all things that exist are already what we should learn from, and there is little if anything left for us to "re"discover or "re"search. Searching for what already is found?

To search in expectation of random or accidental discovery, leads only to a further random and accidental dilution of potential for such discovery to be practical, also known as science. Rather pointless when we are presented continual evidence of vast knowledge simply waiting to be accepted; no searching or finding or discovering required. This known quantity of non-used because it is non-accepted but factual knowledge, would seem the likely candidate for a rational mind to pursue, if that mind were actually seeking to learn or to benefit from knowledge, whether individually or for the collective. A renewed mind may look at function and substance ahead of an extremely eloquent and detailed approach.

Thank you for writing this article and posting it here to share. The concepts you present happily reassure me that the way I conduct much of my book research is both valid and relevant. I take online courses, which are compressed time- and information-wise, and I freely use my intuition to track down relevant supporting information in a matter of an hour or so. I consider it to be an invaluable skill that also allows me to connect seemingly disparate ideas and research into a more comprehensive understanding of a given phenomenon. It also has loaded most of my bookshelves beyond capacity.

I especially appreciate the note about how recording our intuitive experiences "sends a message to the psyche that these 'data' count." That's a brilliant idea that I will certainly run with.

Stacey, there's no reason you can't employ intuitive methods for science research, or any research for that matter. The "methods" won't be a formal part of the research, just part of your own process. It really does make research much more fascinating and engaging, and the process is transformative!

Thank you so much for writing this. I cannot tell you how timely and relevant this information is for me.

I recently finished my Bachelor of Science majoring in physiology in Melbourne and have been so exhausted by the way things are done.This year I am taking time out, focusing on building my spiritual strengths and studying trans-personal counseling, but I know that my mind is too keen to leave science for long.

I hope to return to study in the field of psychology and neuroscience with the goal of researching consciousness, perception of reality and spiritual experience.

Again thank you for your work. I know these techniques will be of great benefit to me.

I find your ideas interesting. Some of them I have experienced myself, free form writing, meditative states, and the feeling sense. While I do believe these are all powerful tools, I have to admit, that these are powerful tools for myself. I come from a traditional academic upbringing and there's a part of me that longs for a more quantitative analysis before I can say "this way is better than that". It may be the case that these tools only work for some people, and I myself have not taken the time to do a qualitiative analysis of attempting to do research with the traditional methods of reading and note taking versus some of the methods mentioned in your article. It would be interesting (but hard to actually measure) to research a topic utilizing the two methods. It's hard to form a baseline or a control group so you can see if these tools are actually functioning or if it's just the random chance that some productive work is occuring. It could be left to "this is the quirky way I do research" but I'd be very interested if you or anyone else was willing to investigate this further.